


Alone Again, Naturally

by lyfthemuffinmoth



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Elias Bouchard Being a Bastard, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, No beta we kayak like Tim, The Lonely - Freeform, a lot of it, for some reason this poured out of me in two hours, i really wish i was sorry, jonmartin, just so much of it, projecting onto martin at 3 am
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:27:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25852120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyfthemuffinmoth/pseuds/lyfthemuffinmoth
Summary: Martin was aloneOf course he was alone.It was what he was meant to be. He could try to convince himself otherwise all he wanted. Distract himself with people and memories but in the end, he was always going to end up by himself.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29





	Alone Again, Naturally

**Author's Note:**

> buckle up this shit is angsty as fuck

Martin was alone

Of course he was alone.

It was what he was meant to be. He could try to convince himself otherwise all he wanted. Distract himself with people and memories but in the end, he was always going to end up by himself. 

His mother never liked him, even when he was a kid. He spent most of his time alone back then. Didn’t have a lot of friends in school, barely any really, so he just spent his time alone. Sometimes his mom would catch him staring out the window for half an hour before finally telling him to stop being lazy and do something. And he would.

Martin knew that it was his fault. It wasn’t like he actively sought people out to talk to. He liked being on his own. He had to like it, to learn to like it, or at least pretend to. That made things a lot easier.

And then he thought getting a job that made him work with people would maybe help him get rid of it. So he gladly accepted the offer to work at the library of the Magnus Institute when he got the offer. You had to interact with people at a library, so it would probably help. 

And it did, for a little while. Martin went out with some friends he made there every month or so, if you could really call them friends. They were more like work friends, but it wasn’t like Martin had any other friends, so he told himself to just be grateful with what he had.

And then he got transferred to the archives. It seemed fun at first. Tim was someone who got along with just about everybody and Sasha seemed the same. But then he let that stupid dog into the archives and everything went downhill. His new boss clearly didn’t like him which was fine, because Martin was to that. What didn’t help was the fact Martin did like him. Sure, he’d had a lot of crushes in the past, but none of them were as harsh as Jon was. It was like Jon just did it on reflex. 

Martin wasn’t sure if Jon noticed that at every insult, Martin flinched a little. Hell, Martin knew that he wasn’t good for the job, his whole CV was a bunch of horseshit, but just hearing Jon say it made him tense a little every time. Every time Jon mentioned him on tapes and every time he said it to his face, it didn’t matter because it hurt.

And Martin decided that he was going to put up with it, because Jon was right. He was bad at his job and he was an inconvenience. A lot of people had told him that through his entire life and so it had to be true. Right?

After he was trapped by Prentiss, Jon seemed to soften a little at him. Even the slightest hint of a smile made Martin’s heart flutter. In some aspect, maybe he owed Jane Prentiss a thank you for helping Jon warm up to him a little. 

After Prentiss’s attack on the institute, Martin noticed Jon slip right back into old habits. He would sometimes even yell at Martin for no apparent reason. Grumpy Jon wasn’t great to deal with, but paranoid Jon was two times worse. 

Not only was Jon’s relationship with Martin degrading, but so was his with Tim. Tim would start yelling and snapping at Jon as well and the two would shout for just so long. Martin had never liked shouting, or loud noises in general. It made him tense, on edge and just over all uncomfortable. 

Of course, he didn’t ask them to stop. It wasn’t Martin’s place and he sure didn’t want them to get mad at him. So he stayed out of it. Retreated back into his little corner in the archives and let himself go back to being invisible. It was better that way. 

Until of course, Jon went missing. It seemed like so much was happening to Jon, and Martin just couldn’t get why. Why didn’t Jon just talk to anyone? Why didn’t Jon talk to _him_? Martin had almost laughed at the question when he had asked himself it. Of course Jon didn’t talk to him. You can’t expect someone to talk to you when you’re the one who keeps pushing people away. It was his own damn fault.

And so Martin waited. Hoped. He knew Jon wasn’t a damn murderer, but it wasn’t like there was anything he could do to prove it. So he figured he could help with something different. Started recording statements. He figured Jon would want some done when he was gone, and it was the least Martin could do. So it was what he did.

And then the days passed further normally again. As normal as the Institute got, that was. Eventually Jon came back before he left almost immediately again. Leaving Martin alone at the Institute to do his job for him. 

At this point, Martin wasn’t even surprised. He was just happy and cheerful Martin, wasn’t he? Martin who was clearly an open book and a push over who you could get to do almost anything if you just asked nicely. 

Martin hated that that was the way people saw him, but sometimes the truth stung. So Martin decided that he was going to change that. Make sure that people saw him as someone who could actually do things, not just as some damsel in distress type who just sat in the background, helplessly. 

But no, the minute he tried to help, Jon said he couldn’t. He said Martin needed to stay behind. Martin hated it, but at least he got to be looped up in a plan eventually. Even if that part was to be a distraction as Jon, Tim, Daisy and Basira were off to save the world. At least he got to do something.

Sure, being Elias's distraction had hur, but he was willing to do a lot to just get people to see that he wasn’t just frail little helpless Martin. He could stand up for himself. He didn’t need Jon, or Tim or Melanie or anyone to save him. 

When he got the news that the wax museum had been blown up, Martin had panicked. They were dead. Oh god they were gonna be dead. He then got a text from Melanie of all people to say that she didn’t know what had happened to the others, but Jon was in the hospital and he wasn’t dead. Martin didn’t even know how she knew that, but he just hurried to the hospital.

And sure there was Jon, hooked up to so much medical equipment Martin didn’t recognize. It was weird, seeing him so still like that without that every lasting frown and his eyes that always smiled ever so slightly closed. It just felt wrong.

Martin had so many feelings, too many feelings. First there was the distraction, Jon was almost certainly going to die and he didn’t even know if the other’s were okay. Martin just wanted to stop. Stop feeling. Stop being in that pain that stabbed his chest every time he looked at Jon.

And then Peter Lukas came. Martin was hesitant at first. Surely, if Elias had left the Institute in Peter’s care, that couldn’t mean Peter was good news. 

But then, Martin lost the only one he had left. His mother passed away. Martin had nobody. No Sasha, no Tim, no Jon, no mom. No one left who cared. 

So he figured, to hell with it. He wanted to stop feeling all of this and so he came to Peter. Convinced himself that it was to figure out what Peter and Elias wanted so he could stop it, but he knew that wasn’t true. He just wanted to stop feeling. Just exist. 

And so he did. He did for a long time. And then Jon woke up. Of course he did. Martin should have known he was never going to die without having the last word.

Martin tried his best not to see Jon. He’d tried too hard to repress and avoid his feelings and he really didn’t want to undo all that progress. So he stayed away from Jon. Stayed by himself. Alone. Naturally. 

It really was naturally. He didn’t even have to try. And he felt useful like this. So it was what he kept doing. He was one step ahead of Peter the whole time and he knew it. He kept one step ahead until that final confrontation and he thought he’d really outsmarted him. 

But then, it turned out it was all some big power play and it was just a trick to get him thrown into the Lonely. Manipulated by Mr. Bitchard yet again. 

Martin embraced the fog in there. It was peaceful. Quiet. No emotions, no betrayal, no heartbreak, no nothing. Just emptiness. 

Eventually, Jon had come and took him out. He’d dragged him out of the Forsaken and held him in that damn Panopticon for what felt like hours. All to make up for their lost time. The time Martin had simply walked away from because he was scared. But now he wasn’t. Now he was safe and sound and in Jon’s arms. Everything was peaceful and quiet but this time Martin felt it all. And he endured and enjoyed every second of it.

Once they got to the safe house, Martin actually believed life got better. Maybe they could actually live like this. Free from the Institute, free from Jonah, free from everything. 

Martin should’ve known it was too good to be true. He should’ve realised it. But by the time he did, it was too late. The world had gone horribly wrong and they were the only people who could stop it. 

Martin wasn’t a chosen one, never had been. He wasn’t the big hero, the protagonist in the Eye’s messed up horror movie. He was just a side character. Just one of the cast that would end up dead. He knew this deep down, even as they approached the Panopticon, Jonah’s messed up castle in the center of the apocalypse. 

He knew it as Jonah forced all that information into his head.

He just knew it.

He was better off alone.

  
  
  


“Martin! Martin, Martin, please please please-” 

The voice snapped Martin back to reality. He slowly blinked open his eyes, still shaking violently. The memories came flooding back to him. Entering the Throne Room, Jonah putting his hand right on Martin’s forehead, sending the crashing waves of information into his brain like it was struck by lightning, and then Jon- _Jon_.

Martin looked up at Jon, who held his face in his hand and who had tears in his eyes. Jon, who smiled at him with his emerald green eyes. Jon, who thought he’d lost everything in the world.

Martin let out a choked sob before Jon crashed into him, wrapping his arms around him. “I thought I’d lost you, I thought-” he stammered. Martin felt tears of his own fall and wet Jon’s dirt covered hair. 

They then both tensed as they heard Jonah laugh from the other end of the room. “Touching reunion.” he said, grinning at both of them. Martin searched for Jon’s hand and quickly found it. He held it tight as they both looked at Jonah. 

“Please do tell me how you’ve been, my dear Archive.” he teased, a shit eating grin curling around his lips. 

Martin wanted to punch that grin right off of his face

Jon glared at him. “I’m not your anything.” he said.

Jonah chuckled. “Oh no, of course you’re not.” he said. “You belong to someone else now, don’t you?” His eyes landed on Martin. 

Jon’s grip on Martin’s hand tightened. “As a matter of fact I do.” he said determinedly. It would’ve made Martin’s heart jump like it had been thrown into the Vast if they weren’t in front of the person who started the apocalypse at the moment. They had more important things to deal with.

“Ah well- What was that saying again?” Jonah picked up quite the knife from a nearby table and looked back to the two of them. 

“Finders Keepers.”

He tossed the knife from hand to hand for a while before throwing it with deathly precision into Martin’s stomach. Martin let out a startled gasp as he clung to Jon to stay upright.

“Losers Weepers.”

Martin barely heard him, and it didn’t seem like Jon heard him either. He was fully focused on Martin, his hands on his face. 

  
  
“Martin- Martin, Martin, it’s okay. It’s okay, you’ll be okay.” He stammered, frantically looking around to find something, anything, that could help.

Martin’s eyes were filled with tears, but not out of sorrow. Martin put his hand on Jon’s face. 

_“It’s okay.”_ he mouthed at Jon as tears rolled down his face. _“I promise.”_

Jon shook his head violently. “No no no no no, it’s not okay, it’s not okay, I’m not losing someone else, I’m not losing someone else. I’m. Not. Losing. Someone. Else.”

Martin noticed black spots dance around in front of his eyes. Or were they green spots? Yellow? It was hard to tell. There was so much light and so much darkness and Martin was so tired. He just wanted to close his eyes and sleep. Sleep sounded nice.

As his head fell back in Jon’s arms and his eyes went glaccy, the last thing Martin heard was an overly loud static sound before the spots danced in front of the entirety of his eyes until there was nothing and no one left to see.

Martin was alone

Of course he was alone.

It was what he was meant to be. He could try to convince himself otherwise all he wanted. Distract himself with people and memories but in the end, he was always going to end up by himself. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> okay so yeah i usually dont write angst, cause it makes me cry, but then this happened. please tell me if you want me to write something to continue this, because my martin kinnie ass will not simply let him die and that be the end of it


End file.
